


A Luminous Reunion

by castles_and_crowns



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Family Reunions, Force Ghosts, Gen, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Redeemed Ben Solo, Skywalker Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13814493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castles_and_crowns/pseuds/castles_and_crowns
Summary: When Leia Organa passes away, she begins to discover what it's like to be one with the Force in the afterlife and all the possibilities the Force has to offer.





	A Luminous Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, this world and these characters belong to those lucky people at Lucasfilm.

Leia Organa kneels before General Hux on the hard, cold floor of her prison cell. Her robes are tattered and her braided hair has come undone after hours of torture. She is so weak, and she knows death must be coming soon.

 

A few weeks ago, Leia was abducted from the remote base she had been working from. Most of the other rebels were scattered across the galaxy, fighting different battles, but Leia and a small group of trusted leaders had hidden on a small, unpopulated moon. After so many of the resistance’s leadership had been taken out one year before before on the _Raddus_ , it was thought prudent to protect the very last of the higher-ups by keeping them in a safe space. Naturally, Leia had opposed this notion, but she had been outnumbered. Yet, somehow, the First Order had still found them. They immediately assassinated everyone at the base—most of whom Leia had known since the Rebellion thirty years prior—but took Leia as their prisoner.

 

General Hux, now interim leader of the First Order, told Leia not longer after her capture that taking her was killing two mynocks with one stone. One reason to hold Leia captive was because it would hopefully incite the resistance to stage a large-scale rescue mission, and in doing so, the First Order could attack all fighters that attempted to approach the star destroyer she was being kept on. Another reason to keep Leia as a prisoner was to hopefully draw out her son Kylo Ren from hiding.

 

Kylo Ren had abruptly abandoned the First Order months ago, and no one—on either side of the war—knew where he was. Hux wanted Kylo Ren to return so that he could kill his nemesis once and for all, and he thought imprisoning Kylo’s mother might bring him back to the First Order.

 

“I won’t tell you anything,” Leia grits out though her pain. “You must know this.”

 

“I know that torture can break even the strongest prisoner,” Hux sneers in reply.

 

Despite the pain she’s in, Leia manages to smirk. “I’ve been through worse, General.”

 

“Then you will die,” Hux says. “And your resistance will be over shortly thereafter.”

 

Her smirk grows. “The resistance will continue on without me. It will live as long as people wish to live freely and without tyranny.”

 

Leia feels incredibly lightheaded now, and all of her hearing and sight begin to wane. Despite these senses failing, however, Leia smells a familiar scent, one she hasn’t smelled in a long time.

 

“General Organa!” Hux shouts at her, presumably to keep her from losing focus.

 

She’s too far gone now, and she collapses on her side. The familiar scent overtakes her, and suddenly she’s able to see a bluish image before her.

 

_It’s her brother._

_“Leia,”_ Luke calls to her.

 

Leia doesn’t have to open her mouth to respond to him. “Luke, you’re here.”

“Of course, I am. I’m here to bring you home.”

 

“Home?” she asks.

 

“To the Force,” Luke tells her. “Are you ready to let go?”

 

“Yes,” Leia replies, and soon the only thing she can see is her brother’s bluish form.

 

But then Luke’s bluish form disappears. She can feel his essence, but she can’t see him. Leia realizes that she’s now left her body and that her own essence is everywhere all at once. With her spirit, she reaches out to Luke.

 

“I’m gone now, aren’t I?”

 

“Yes,” he somehow answers.   She doesn’t hear his voice exactly, but she can feel his response reverberate through the Force. He then says, “You are now one with the Force.”

 

She wonders to herself what the implications of being one with the Force are. Luke seems to hear her question without her reaching out to his spirit to ask it.

 

“You can appear to someone if they call to you or are really in need. But mostly, you just dwell in the Force. It’s peaceful.”

 

“Can I see Ben?”

 

“Yes. Not all the time. But if you feel as if he needs you.”

 

“He does,” she says. “I can feel it.”

 

She felt it before her death too. He was in so much pain that his anguish somehow percolated through Leia’s soul as well. Her son needed her. Wherever he was, he _needed_ her.

 

“Then, search for him through the Force, and the Force will do the rest.”

 

“That seems too easy.”

 

“We are no longer bogged down by the physical. You’ll find life after death is much easier.”

 

Even though he no longer has a physical form with which to react—and Leia couldn’t see him even if he did due to her not having a physical form either—she can almost detect a knowing smile on her brother’s (nonexistent) face.

 

“Okay, I’ll try my best.”

 

“Do or do not—“

 

“—there is no try,” she finishes. “I never get sick of hearing that.”

 

“Yes, you do,” Luke replies. (She detects the smile again.) “Now, go to your son.”

 

Leia does as Luke says, reaches out through the Force, and searches for her son. She feels his presence in a familiar place, though she can’t quite place it. Suddenly, she feels the Force swirl around her as she begins to take on an ephemeral and ethereal form.

 

She is now a bluish form, similar to the one she saw Luke inhabit before her death.

 

Her vision has returned, though not completely. She can only see what the Force wills absolutely necessary. She sees her son kneeling in a room she knows very well—Ben’s childhood bedroom in their old apartment on Chandrila.

 

She, Han, and Ben lived on Chandrila for the first ten years of Ben’s life, as it was where the New Republic government was stationed. When the government moved to Hosnian Prime, requiring Leia to move there, Han had wanted to sell their apartment. Leia, however, couldn’t part with the place. It had been her first real home in four years, and she felt there were too many memories there for them to simply sell it.

 

So, they kept the apartment. She almost never visited it after she moved away, but there was a comfort in knowing it was there. After the New Republic had been destroyed, Leia had assumed the place had been wrecked and pillaged. But from what she could see now, it appeared to be in almost perfect condition.

 

“Ben,” she calls out.

 

Her son hears her and turns his head. His eyes go wide and then become wet. Still on his knees, he turns around fully to face his mother. Leia examines her son and is heartbroken to see just how shattered he appears to be. Both his body and his soul are shattered. His beautiful brown eyes have dark purple bags under them and he is thinner than she’s ever seen him as an adult. She can feel how broken his soul is as well. It’s as if someone has been ripping pieces from it for years and years. ( _Someone has_ , she thinks.) He looks like a sick child, not like the thirty year old man he is.

 

“ _Mom_ ,” he gasps. “You’re here, you’re… _dead_.”

 

“I am,” Leia replies. “Your general saw to that.”

 

“He’s not my general,” Ben responds angrily, though his anger is not directed at Leia. “He hasn’t been for some time.”

 

“That’s right,” she replies. “You left the First Order. Why?”

 

Ben doesn’t answer her immediately. He only stares at Leia, as if he is mesmerized. Leia waits patiently for him to speak. She knows he will.

 

“To search for what was right,” he says finally, his stare now dropping to the floor.

 

“And have you found it?”

 

“I went searching in the wrong places at first. I went searching for answers in old temples and shrines, but I learned nothing, so I decided to start at the beginning.”

 

“You’re retracing the steps of your life,” she postulates.

 

“Yes,” he replies, his eyes still focused on the carpeted floor.

 

Leia can suddenly see a chair in the corner of Ben’s room. It’s a rocking chair that Leia used to sit in when Ben was a baby. She would cradle Ben in her arms and rock him back and forth while singing him an old Alderaan lullaby until he fell asleep. Even after Ben no longer needed to be rocked to sleep, Leia had insisted on keeping the chair in his room, right in the corner where it was in now.

 

She discovers that she can actually sit in the chair and feels a contented smile spread across her face.

 

“Why did you want to search for what was right?”

 

Ben closes his eyes and grimaces, as if he has a headache. She can feel the pain and sorrow radiating off of her son, and she wants nothing more than to cradle him just as she did when he was an infant. She wants to take away her son’s agony until he is peaceful.

 

 _Has he ever been peaceful?_ she asks herself.

 

“You know the girl, Rey?” he asks.

 

The question is rhetorical. They both know Leia knows who Rey is, but Leia answers anyway. “Yes, I do.”

 

“She’s strong in the Force. She’s got both so much light and dark in her, and yet, without any training, she knows how to wield the light and control the dark.”

 

Ben swallows hard, and Leia can sense that the next words out of his mouth are very difficult for him to speak.

 

“Snoke once told me that there was great light and great dark in me. He was angry with me because he thought that I was weak, that I was leaning toward the light. If I wanted to be like Darth Vader, he said, I had to extinguish the light, to let go of the past that kept the light within me ignited. And I tried.”

 

Leia knows he tried. He killed his father trying.

 

“I tried,” he repeats, “But the light was still there. I hated its presence, tried to extinguish it, but it wouldn’t go away. It was always in conflict with the dark.   When I met Rey, I was amazed at how the light and the dark somehow worked…in _harmony_ with one another. She used mainly the light, but at the same time, she didn’t ignore the dark. She recognized its presence and wasn’t afraid of it. I didn’t understand how that could be. After Snoke’s death and after…”

 

He trails off, and Leia knows what he’s going to say. She finishes his thought for him, “After your confrontation with Luke…”

 

He glances up at her for just a moment, and Leia sees remorse in his eyes.

 

“Yes, after my confrontation with Luke,” Ben says, returning his gaze to the ground, “I knew I couldn’t go on trying to suppress the light and pretending as if it wasn’t there. So I left the First Order to seek out what the Force deems to be _right_. I do not believe it to be the Jedi, and I do not believe it to be the Sith. It’s so much bigger than that.”

 

“Rey’s training to be a Jedi,” Leia tells him.

 

Ben looks up at her now, a knowing expression on his face. This time, he keeps her gaze. “No, she’s not. She’s using the Jedi ways to guide her path when she needs assistance, but she’s not a Jedi. She’s something else, something different.

 

Leia had been gently rocking in the chair, but when she hears this, she abruptly stops. “How do you know that?”

 

Ben’s knowing expression transforms into one of…is that _embarrassment?_ “Our minds…they’re connected. Snoke said he was the one who did it, but I’m not so sure. Sometimes I can see her, usually when she’s training or when I’m in the midst of my search.”

 

Leia is fascinated. She had a similar connection to Luke, but she couldn’t ever _see_ him.

 

“So, you came home to search for what was right, to ‘retrace your steps.’ Has being home provided you with answers?”

 

Ben nods and he swallows back tears. “Yes. It reminded me that I was _loved_.”

 

“Of course, you were loved,” Leia replies, and somehow tears begin forming in her own eyes. “We loved you with all of our hearts.”

 

“I know that now,” Ben tells her. “But Snoke…he poisoned my mind. He made me believe that because you were both busy and because you sent me away, that you didn’t love me.”

 

“We sent you away so that you could train with Luke,” Leia practically whispers. She knows Ben’s actions are not her fault, but in this moment, she feels nothing but guilt. “I knew you were a troubled child, and I thought the best solution to that was to have Luke train you in the ways of the Force. I thought training would provide you with the guidance you needed.”

 

“I know that now,” Ben repeats, his voice softer now as he gets up and approaches his mother. He kneels in front of her in supplication and tries to take hold of her hands. Of course, he cannot, but Leia appreciates the gesture more than he can understand.

 

“You came from the light, Ben,” she reminds him. “You were never meant to hide from it.”

 

“There’s darkness in me too,” Ben replies, ashamed. “It’s always been there.”

 

“Yes, I suspect that it has.”

 

“I’ve let the darkness lead me for so long that I need to start over, start from the _beginning_ in hopes of allowing the light to resurface. Now that Snoke isn’t here to pollute my mind, I have hope that it can be done. I know I can’t hide from the darkness. I have to learn to control it, while allowing the light to take the lead. Coming here was only my first step.”

 

“Well, perhaps you should get going then. I believe you’ve got many more places to visit.”

 

“I do,” Ben replies, and for the first time in an incredibly long time, Leia sees her son smile. It’s small, but it reaches his eyes.

 

 _He’s so beautiful when he smiles,_ she reflects.

 

“I think I should be going too,” Leia tells him. “I don’t think I can stick around like this forever.”

 

Now, Ben actually chuckles, and Leia laughs with him. Again, she wishes she could reach out and touch her son.

 

“Thank you, Mom,” Ben says. “I love you.”

 

“I love you, too, Ben.”

 

And then, Leia feels herself dissolve back into the Force.

 

***

 

Occasionally, Leia and Luke communicate through the Force, but most of the time, Leia just _is._ She has no concept of time, and though she can sense overarching feelings felt throughout the galaxy, she doesn’t have a firm grasp of what is happening.

 

If someone had told Leia while she was alive that this was what it was like after death, Leia would have cringed at the idea. Now, however, Leia found it peaceful, just as Luke had said.

 

She hasn’t made any more appearances as a Force ghost. No one has needed her in the way that Ben had needed her that day. Leia thought this must have been a good thing.

 

 

One day though, she senses a rumble in the Force.

 

Luke senses it too because he extends his essence out to Leia and asks, “Did you feel that?”

 

“Yes. What is it?”

 

“I’m trying to seek it out. Can you sense its nature?”

 

“It’s powerful, but I don’t think it’s bad.”

 

“I don’t think so either,” Luke responds.

 

Suddenly, she feels a call and gets an urge at the same time. _She is needed_.

 

Ben needs her, but…Rey does too. They’re together, she realizes.

 

Luke realizes it too and tells Leia that he is needed as well. They go together.

 

Just as she did last time, she searches for both Ben’s and Rey’s presence in the Force. When she finds them, she begins to feel the Force whirl around her until she is that bluish figure again. With the vision she now has, she turns and sees her brother. He smiles (a _real_ smile) at her, and she reciprocates it.

 

Leia then looks around to assess where she is. She realizes she and Luke are on the outskirts of a military base somewhere on a forest planet. She sees her son and Rey a few meters away, sitting on some boulders, deep in thought.

 

When Ben and Rey sense the ghosts’ presences, they look up. Rey seems surprised, but Ben is not. He appears pleased.

 

“You came,” Ben says, as he and Rey approach her and Luke.

 

“I can’t believe it.” Rey is in awe.

 

“You needed us,” Luke tells them. “We felt it.”

 

“We’re going to defeat the First Order,” Rey says. Leia marvels at Rey’s unflinching confidence.

 

“Are you ready to do that?” Leia asks, more to her son than to Rey.

 

“Yes,” he tells her. “I’ve reached the final phase of my search.”

 

“You’ve found the light, then?” Luke asks curiously.

 

With unwavering certainty and absolutely no bitterness, Ben responds to his uncle. “I have. I understand now that I will always struggle with the dark, but I’ve reached a place where I can endure it without suppressing it. And finding Rey was the last step in my search for the light.”

 

Rey smiles at Ben and says, “He has a lot to be proud of.”

 

“He does. I’m proud of you, Ben,” Luke tells him.

 

“So am I. Your father would be too,” Leia adds, and she wishes Han could witness this.

 

Through their Force bond, she senses Luke thinking the same thing. Her brother turns to her then and looks at her with a mysterious twinkle in his eyes. The look reminds her of better times, long ago.

 

“What?” she asks him, through their bond.

 

“I don’t know if it will work, but I think we should try.”

 

“Try what?”

 

“To bring Han here.”

 

“How?”

 

“He’s part of the Force too. He just can’t do this on his own because he’s not sensitive to the Force.”

 

 _Luminous beings are we,_ Leia remembers Luke telling her many years ago.

 

Leia sneaks a glance at Ben and Rey, who obviously can’t hear she and Luke’s private conversation. Ben and Rey are just standing there, waiting and looking slightly puzzled. Leia offers them the tiniest smile and then turns back to her brother.

 

“But how are we supposed to do this?”

 

“Leia, we’re Skywalkers. Our father was created through the Force. If anyone can do this, we can.”

 

Leia thinks about this for a moment. She wants to believe they can do it, but if they try and can’t, she’ll be devastated. Then again, if they don’t try to bring Han back, then she’ll never know if they could have done it. She’ll never know if she could have seen her husband once more.

 

Finally, she nods. “Okay.”

 

Luke turns to Ben and Rey. “Stay put for just a moment more,” he tells them.

 

“Okay,” Rey replies.

 

Turning back to Leia, Luke instructs her through their bond. “Remember how I taught you to meditate?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Bring your mind to that meditative place and then begin to focus all your energy on Han’s physical form. Try to imagine him right in front of you. I’ll do the same.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Luke steps back a little so that there’s some distance between them. On Luke’s go ahead, Leia begins picturing her husband. In her mind, she sees his height and his graying hair and the facial scruff he had later on in life. She pictures his broad shoulders and his big hands and his firm chest. She imagines his beautiful hazel eyes and the roguish half smile that used to make her weak in the knees.

 

And suddenly… _suddenly_ , she sees Han Solo in front of her. He is facing her, looking pleasantly surprised but also sort of nonchalant. _Typical Han._

 

He smiles at Leia and then turns to look at Luke. “What’s this all about?”

 

Luke points to Ben and Rey who are both stupefied. While Rey is grinning from ear to ear, Ben looks as if he’s seen a ghost...which technically, he has.

 

“Ben,” Han says.

 

Ben opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out.

 

“You’re here!” Rey exclaims. “How are you here?”

 

Han chuckles and looks between Luke and Leia. “I have no idea. You’ll have to ask these two.”

 

Han then puts his right arm around Luke and grabs Leia’s hand with his left hand. When he does this, Leia feels something she’s never felt before. There’s a magic between the three of them when they touch—the two Skywalkers and the man they were able to temporarily bring back. Leia feels the Force surrounding her more strongly than she ever has before, and it’s _thrilling._

“We brought him back for you. You deserve to see him once more before going to battle,” Luke explains. He’s talking to both of them, but he’s looking at Ben.

 

“Going into battle?” Han repeats. “Impressive.”

 

Ben’s lip twitches upward at his father’s comment. “We’re going to defeat the First Order.”

 

“Once and for all,” Rey adds.

 

Han nods, and his face becomes serious as he gazes at his son. “I’m glad to see you found your way back.”

 

Ben holds his father’s gaze. “You died trying to bring me back. Your death will not be in vain now.”

 

“You’ve done good, kid.”

 

Leia sees her son’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m trying to make things right.”

 

“You will,” Leia assures him.

 

Ben turns to Rey, and they share a private exchange. Rey nods and turns to the three Force beings in front of her. “Thank you for all your guidance.” And then she walks away.

 

Now alone with his parents and uncle, Ben takes a few steps toward them. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make things right,” he reiterates.

 

“You will,” Leia repeats.

 

“Remember that we are with you always,” Luke tells him. “Remember where you came from and let it guide where you’re going.”

 

“And listen to the girl,” Han tells him, smiling.

 

“I will.”

 

“We love you, Ben. We love you so much.”

 

“I love you too,” Ben says, making eye contact with all three of them. “Thank you for coming.”

 

“We’ll always be here. Search for us through the Force, and you’ll find us,” Luke tells him.

 

Ben nods, and there’s a moment of silence between the four members of the galaxy’s most famous family. Then Leia sees her son’s face change, and she knows it’s time for him and Rey to head to the First Order’s base.

 

“Go on,” she instructs Ben. “Make us proud.”

 

Ben offers them all a small smile.

 

“We’ll be seeing you,” Luke speaks.

 

“Goodbye, son,” Han says, bidding Ben farewell.

 

“Goodbye,” Ben responds.

 

He turns around and heads off in the direction that Rey went. When he’s about ten meters away, he turns around one last time and smiles at his family. Leia detects a sense of pride in his smile; however, it’s not arrogant or aloof. Instead, Leia senses that the smile is one of pride for his family and what he’s about to do.

 

She smiles back at her son, and as he walks further away, she feels herself slipping away and becoming one with the Force once more.

 

 

 

           

 

           

**Author's Note:**

> This was basically me coping with the fact that we'll never get Luke, Leia, and Han reunion AND the fact that Leia will not be in Ep IX.


End file.
